Chapter 1

, necessarily imply more than one person. The crime in question is one to which men are easily tempted in certain stages of society. Abimelech, in the book of Judges (ix, 5), “slew his brethren, the sons of Jerubbaal.” Jephthah had to “flee from the face of his brethren.” Absalom had his brother Amnon assassinated, and all the king’s sons fled in fear of sharing the same fate. Solomon put to death his elder brother Adonijah. Athaliah, the queen mother, “destroyed all the seed royal” of Judah. The annals of eastern[118] and even western[119] nations are full of such occurrences. But, in positions less exalted than that of claimants to royalty, ambition or covetousness are motives to crimes like that of the wicked uncle of ‘the Babes in the Wood.’[120] The reading ⁂⁂⁂⁂, which has for determinative the sign ⁂ of _smallness_, seems to indicate that the victims of the crime are _minors_, perhaps _wards_.

Some of the papyri (even that of Nebseni) have a _calf_, ⁂, as determinative of the word, and as the ‘slaying of calves’ is not necessarily a crime, other scribes have added ⁂⁂, ‘sacred,’ and thus made the sin one of sacrilege.

The same word, like the Greek μόσχος and the Latin _pullus_, might be applied to the young of all kinds of animals; but the Egyptian scribes have in such cases a propensity to use a determinative which forces a wrong sense upon the word.

4. _Instead of truth_, ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂. There are two ways according to which this expression may be translated, but only one of them can be the right one. ⁂⁂⁂ is a compound preposition, _instead of_, _in loco_, _anstatt_, _au lieu de_, بمنزلة. And this is evidently the right construction. If ⁂ be taken as the simple preposition governing ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂, the meaning will be that the deceased did not “tell lies _in the cemetery_.” The Pyramid Texts (Unas, 394) have the expression ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂(_sic_), “Right instead of Wrong.”

5. This is only an approximate version of a passage, the true text of which was lost at an early period. M. Maspero (_Origines_, p. 189) understands it as follows: “Je n’ai jamais imposé du travail à l’homme libre quelconque, en plus de celui qu’il faisait pour luimême!” The last words are the translation of ⁂⁂⁂, according to _Td._ (tomb of Ramses IV) all the other ancient texts having ⁂, ‘_for me_.’ But the chief difficulties occur at the beginning of the sentence.

6. _Shorten the palm’s length_, ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂. Many papyri read ⁂, which is a superficial measure, more in place under the next precept.

7. _The fields’ measure_, ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂.

8. _The beam of the balance_, ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂.

_The tongue_ [rather _plummet_] _of the balance_, ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂.

The balance is so frequently represented in false perspective by Egyptian artists, that Sir J. G. Wilkinson has given an account of it, which is quite unintelligible to those who have ever so moderate a knowledge of statics. Mr. Petrie’s description is the true one. “The beam was suspended by a loop or ring from a bracket projecting from the stand.... Then below the beam, a long tongue was attached, not above the beam as with us. To test the level of the beam, a plummet hung down the tongue, and it was this plummet which was observed to see if the tongue was vertical and the beam horizontal.”—_A Season in Egypt_, p. 42.

In Pl. XXXVI, a few pictures will be found which give a more correct notion of the Egyptian balance than some of the absurd representations which defy a scientific explanation.

It is evident that if the tongue is fastened at a wrong angle, the beam will not really be horizontal when the tongue is shown by the plummet line to be vertical. This seems to be the fraud alluded to in the text.

The word ⁂⁂, ⁂⁂, the name given to the plummet, apparently signifies a cup _full_ of liquid. It is etymologically identical with ⁂⁂⁂⁂, _a toper_ (ⲑⲁϧⲓ, ϯϩⲉ, _ebrius_, _ebrietas_), ⁂⁂⁂, ⲧⲓϧⲓ, _a crane_, and ⁂⁂⁂ the crane-god, Thoth.

The apparatus of which the plummet forms so important a part, whether for the balance or for building purposes, is called ⁂⁂⁂ (_Denkm._, III, 26), ⁂⁂.

9. _The manors of the gods_, ⁂⁂⁂. I understand ⁂⁂ as property acquired by royal grant. Aâhmes at El Kab says that he has _acquired_ (⁂⁂⁂⁂) much land through the royal bounty. The deceased in the later copies of the Book of the Dead (Ch. 1, 24), acquires the allotment of land, ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂, in the Garden of Aarru, and Ani (Pl. III) acquires “a permanent allotment (⁂⁂⁂) in the Garden of Hotepit like the followers of Horus.”

10. _Ponds._ The right reading is ⁂⁂⁂, as Birch already noted in his _Dictionary_, from the excellent papyrus _Ao_ of the XVIIIth dynasty.

Hieratic papyri also give the determinative ⁂.

The determinative ⁂ which some of the papyri give to the word, and which is a self-evident blunder, is probably copied either from ⁂, or from ⁂. The sign ⁂, and a man striking with an instrument, which also occur, are mere symbols of the operation by which either _quarries_, or _ponds_, are _cut_.

11. _Thou of the Nose_, or rather _Beak_, ⁂⁂⁂⁂, in allusion to one of the chief characteristic features of the Ibis god (πρόσωπον ἐς τὰ μάλιστα ἐπίγρυπον; _Herodotus_, II, 76, in his description of the bird). Thoth, the god of Chemunnu, is meant by this appellative.

He is so called, ⁂⁂⁂, on the statue of the King Horus in the Museum of Turin (l. 8), and ⁂⁂⁂ on the very much more ancient altar, of the VIth dynasty, belonging to the same museum. The same appellative[121] is found in the list of gods upon each of the Memphite cubits described by Lepsius.[122]

12. _Eater of the Shadow._ The Demotic version interprets this of “his own shadow.” I am rather inclined to interpret it by “the gnomons which were without shadows at noon,” and the “well of Syene” (Strabo, 817) at the Summer Solstice; when the Sun was vertical.

13. _Thou of Lion form_, ⁂⁂⁂⁂. The Demotic has “Shu and Tefnut.” But as there are only forty-two gods in all, we must here think of a single god with a lion’s head, as in such pictures as _Wilkinson_, III, Pl. XLIX; _Denkm._, III, 276, and many sarcophagi (_e.g._, Leemans, _Mon._, III, L, Pl. III).

Even some of the Theban papyri have two divinities by way of determinatives to the group.

14. _Sluggish_, ⁂⁂⁂; ⁂⁂⁂⁂, ⁂⁂⁂⁂, _sluggishness_. Coptic ϭⲛⲁⲩ. See my note (_Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch._, XI, p. 76) on the Inscription of Kum el Ahmar.

There are however other readings; none of them apparently of any value.

15. _Thou of the Bright Teeth_, ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂. The Demotic equivalent is, “who openeth his teeth,” and so exhibits their brightness.

16. _Âati_, ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂, a name about which the copyists have bungled. It is one of the names of Râ in the Solar Litany, where it appears (l. 23) as ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂, or ⁂⁂. Whether applied to the Sun, to the Fish of the name, or to a Ship, the name means _Cutter_, ‘that which cleaves’ its way.

17. _Ṭuṭu_, ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂, with many variants, showing that the scribes did not understand the sense of the syllable ⁂⁂, some of them adding the bird of evil ⁂, others the ⁂ determinative of _mountain_. The name on the Sarcophagus of Seti (Bon. II, A. 30) has a snake for determinative, and some papyri call him _Ṭuṭu_. The god may be recognised in later texts. In the Calendar of Esneh there is a feast on the 14th day of Thoth, in honour of ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂, Tutu, ‘the son of Neith,’ and the text gives the important determinative ⁂, of a _serpent_, _worm_, or _slug_. I feel sure, therefore, that we should in the text read the name Tutu, and consider ⁂ as a determinative.[123] The symbolism would then be identical with that in Pl. XXIII, illustrative of